Polynucleotides are useful in a variety of applications such as target detection, diagnostic applications, therapeutic applications, nucleic acid sequencing, forensic analysis, and target amplification, for example. Usually, such applications require polynucleotides that hybridize to complementary polynucleotide strands with high specificity and sensitivity, especially when a target nucleic acid is available in limited quantities.
Nucleotide analogs with modified bases have been developed for inclusion in polynucleotides to change the strength, sensitivity and/or specificity of nucleic acid hybridization, amplification, and/or detection. Nevertheless, new chemical structures and methods are needed to expand the set of tools available for manipulation and analysis of nucleic acids.